


Good Samaritan

by eternaleponine



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Clexa Week 2018, F/F, meet ugly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-23 22:01:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13797210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternaleponine/pseuds/eternaleponine
Summary: Clexa Week 2018 - Day 1 - Meet UglyLaw student Lexa accidentally hits med student Clarke with her car in a parking garage.  Clarke decides Lexa needs to make it up to her.





	Good Samaritan

_I didn't see her. I swear I didn't see her. She just came out of nowhere. I checked all of my mirrors - **twice** \- and I swear I didn't see anyone. The car was in gear. My foot was on the brake, so my brake lights would have been on, and I know that they're working because I just got my oil changed and they checked everything. I know it's the responsibility of the driver to look out for pedestrians, but pedestrians also share the responsibility of keeping an eye out for moving vehicles, even though I don't think I was even moving at that point, but I had to have been, I guess, but I swear that she just **appeared** and by the time I saw her—_

Lexa's mind was going a mile a minute as she sat frozen in the driver's seat of her car, her hands clenched so tight on the wheel that her knuckles were white, her stomach churning as she raced through her defense for the inevitable interview with the cops, because she'd just _hit a person_ with her _car_ and there was basically no chance at all that she wasn't going to end up in trouble for it. 

_What do I do? Do I get out and check on her? Do I call 911? If I check on her, if I try to do anything to help her, and something goes wrong, does that make it better or worse? Do Good Samaritan laws apply if you're the person who caused the need for the Good Samaritan in the first place?_

Her one-and-a-half semesters of law school were turning out to be pretty damn useless at the moment. 

Finally common sense and human decency overrode the Do Not Make Yourself Liable voice in the back of her head and she pushed open her door, nearly tripping as she got out, her knees having turned to Jell-O immediately following the _THUMP_ of her rear bumper making impact with a human being. 

She went around to the back of the car and saw a young woman – probably her age, maybe a little older or younger – pushing herself to sitting, shaking her head gently as if to clear it. 

"M-Maybe you shouldn't move," Lexa said, holding her hands out in front of her in an I Come In Peace gesture. "You might... you might be hurt, and not realize it, and..." 

"Shit." The girl reached up and touched her forehead, where blood was starting to bead up from an abrasion over her eyebrow. She grimaced at the sight of it on her fingers. "I'm fine, just—" She looked at Lexa and frowned. "Are _you_ okay?"

"Um." Lexa swallowed a mouthful of sour saliva. "Yes?"

She was suddenly shaky as all of the adrenaline that had rushed into her system a second ago started to ebb away. 

"Maybe you should sit down," the girl suggested. "Is this your car?"

"Um," Lexa said again. 

"You seriously look like you're going to pass out. Sit down before we both end up with head injuries." Her mouth quirked into a smile that was the absolute last thing that Lexa expected to see. Had she somehow not figured out that Lexa was the one that hit her? Which was good for Lexa, maybe, but...

"I'm Clarke," the girl said. "What's your name?"

"Lexa," she managed. 

"Okay, Lexa," Clarke said, standing up and moving past her to hit the button for the automatic doors on her car, unlocking all of them. She tugged open the back door and eased Lexa down on the seat. "Bend over and put your head between your knees and just take slow, deep breaths," she said. "Okay? Inhale through your nose, exhale through your mouth..." She sucked in a breath through her nose and let it out in a slow, audible exhalation, guiding Lexa through it. 

Lexa did as she was told, and tried not to think about the fact that as long Clarke was helping her keep from passing out, she wasn't attending to her wound. The wound that Lexa had caused, even if she hadn't been the one to inflict it. 

"There's a... hold on," she said, rifling around under the driver's seat and coming up with an old, battered, but always well-stocked First Aid kit. (She prided herself in being prepared for just about any emergency.) "You're bleeding," she said. 

"I noticed," Clarke said dryly. "It's fine."

"It's not," Lexa said. "Let me just..." She waved in the direction of Clarke's forehead and shrugged. "It's the least I can do."

"You di—" Clarke's forehead furrowed, which tugged at the wound, and the surface tension on one of the blood droplets broke and it slid down into her eyebrow. She reached up to touch it, but Lexa caught her hand. 

"You'll just introduce more germs," she said. "Just... let me."

* * *

It was kind of funny, being lectured by someone about the possible negative effects of touching an open wound. A rather oblivious someone, considering that Clarke would have thought that her scrubs would have given away the fact that she knew a thing or two about wound care. But Lexa seemed a little – more than a little – frazzled, so she decided not to argue with her. She just traded places and waited patiently while Lexa scrubbed her hands with an alcohol prep pad, then hand sanitizer for good measure (or overkill and the potential breeding of super-bacteria, depending on how you wanted to look at it), before reaching for another packet and tearing it open.

"No gloves?" Clarke teased. 

"I need to restock them," Lexa said seriously. "I forgot that I used the last set in here." She glanced at Clarke, and maybe it was just a trick of the odd murky parking garage light, but Clarke thought she might be blushing. "I have them at home." 

"Oh yeah?" Clarke asked. "Where do you keep them?"

"In the bathroom...?" Lexa said, her forehead furrowing in confusion. "Where else wo—" Her voice caught and she swallowed. "In the bathroom," she repeated, definitely blushing now as she fumbled with the alcohol-soaked towelette and nearly dropped it. "This might sting a little."

It didn't sting a little. It stung _a lot_ , which Clarke knew it would, but rubbing alcohol on an open wound was a pain she was pretty sure it was impossible to get used to, or even really brace yourself for. On the other hand, she had a nice view as Lexa leaned in to dab away the blood on the wound, making sure that she erased any trace of grit. She wore a V-necked sweater that looked like it was really soft – cashmere, maybe – and it took all of Clarke's willpower not to reach out and stroke it. But Lexa would probably take that the wrong way... if there was a wrong way to take it, because right about now Clarke was ready to take it anywhere Lexa wanted it to go... including right here in the back seat of her impeccably neat car.

_Down, girl,_ she told herself. 

Lexa pulled a Band-Aid from the kit, dabbed a little antibiotic ointment on it, and placed it carefully over the wound, smoothing the sticky fabric over Clarke's forehead. "There," she said. "All better."

"Not yet," Clarke said.

Lexa frowned, looking around like she was missing something, like maybe she'd missed a step in the wound dressing process. She finally looked back at Clarke, clearly waiting for clarification.

"You have to kiss it," Clarke said, fighting back a smile. "To make it all better. That's the last step."

At long last Lexa seemed to register Clarke's attire, and her eyes narrowed. "Do you do that for all of your patients?" she asked. 

"No," Clarke admitted. "Only the ones that ask nicely." She didn't bother holding back her grin any longer. "Will you please kiss it and make it better, Doctor Lexa?"

"I'm not a doctor," Lexa said. 

"Nurse?" Clarke countered.

"Not that either."

"Well what are you then?" Clarke asked, then held up her hand to stop Lexa from answering. "Wait. You can tell me over dinner."

God, she was adorable when she was confused. And probably plenty of other times, too, Clarke realized, but she'd pretty much only seen confused and terrified so far. Maybe over dinner she would get to see more... assuming Lexa took the bait. 

"Dinner?"

"Well if you won't kiss it to make it all better, it seems like you ought to keep me a little longer for observation, just to make sure that there aren't any complications after the procedure." She cocked her head, batting her eyelashes in a way that she knew was totally over the top... but it got her what she wanted.

Lexa's carefully constructed mask cracked, and she smiled. "I guess it's the least I can do," she said. "Did you have somewhere in mind?"

* * *

Lexa watched as Clarke dragged a French fry through a pool of ketchup and popped it into her mouth. Greasy diner food was her go-to comfort food, it turned out, although the placed they'd decided on was a little more upscale than your average diner... and a little more expensive, which Lexa tried not to think about too hard. The stipend that she got every semester didn't allow for a lot of extras, but she could spring for a meal out once in a while. Especially when it was to try to assuage the guilt that still churned in her gut at knowing that she'd backed a car into another human being.

Over dinner, she learned that Clarke was a medical student, a year younger than her, that her mother was a surgeon and her father had been an engineer, but he'd died unexpectedly when she was in high school. In turn, she told Clarke that she was in law school, and that she hoped to work for the ACLU or a similar group someday. She told her that she'd lost both of her parents when she was so young she didn't really remember, and she'd been raised in foster care, bouncing between homes and families without ever really getting the chance to develop a connection to anyone.

"Except Anya," she said. "She kept in touch with me even after she aged out, so she's the big sister I never had, I guess."

"I'm an only child," Clarke said. "I had a friend that I grew up with pretty much from birth, so that was sort of like having a brother, but..." She shrugged, then leaned in to take the straw of her milkshake between her lips, and Lexa had to quickly avert her eyes so she didn't get caught staring. "Tell me something you've never told anyone else," Clarke said suddenly.

Lexa frowned. "Why would I do that?"

"Because you want to get to know me," Clarke said, her lips curving into a smirk. "And if you show me yours, I'll be obligated to show you mine."

Lexa nearly choked on the sip of water she'd just taken. "I don't think that's how it works," she managed, when she'd stopped coughing and sputtering. She looked up through watering eyes and found that Clarke was at her side, her hand hovering just above her shoulder like she wasn't sure whether or not she should touch her, or maybe whether or not she was allowed. 

"Well not if you _die_ first," Clarke quipped, returning to her seat, but still looking at Lexa like she might keel over at any second. 

"I'm not going to die," Lexa said. 

"Good," Clarke said. "Because I'm not into that."

"Into...?" Lexa started to ask, then held up her hand. "You know what? Don't answer that. I'm sure that I don't want to know."

Clarke just grinned. "You can use your imagination, then," she said. "I'm still waiting, by the way."

"For what?" Lexa asked, reaching for her glass again. 

Clarke reached across the table and caught Lexa's hand, pinning it in place before she could try take another drink. "You to show me yours."

Lexa rolled her eyes and extricated her hand from Clarke's grip... not because she wanted to, but because she didn't, and the last thing that she needed right now was to let herself start feeling things for this girl... or anyone. Or feel anything at all. Not with midterms coming up next week. 

"Something that I've never told anyone?" Lexa asked. Clarke nodded. "How would you know?" Lexa asked. "I could tell you something that I've told a dozen people, and you wouldn't know."

"One," Clarke said, "you're stalling. And two, I know you wouldn't do that."

Lexa raised an eyebrow. "You think you know me well enough to say that?"

"Yes," Clarke said. "I do."

There was something about how brash she was, how cocky, that would have irritated Lexa in pretty much any other person. But with Clarke it was somehow almost charming. She just assumed that she would get her way... and the hell of it was, she was probably going to again. Because she wasn't wrong about Lexa. Not when it came to answering honestly, and not when she said that Lexa wanted to get to know her, either. 

_Something I've never told anyone..._ She frowned, picking up her fork and poking at the salad she'd ordered, wishing she'd gotten something that would actually taste good instead. It seemed like it ought to be an easy enough question, but somehow, it wasn't. It was like her entire life flashed before her eyes, but going so fast that she couldn't catch hold of any individual moments to point to and say, 'This. This is something I've never told anyone about.'

"Do you want me to go first?" Clarke finally asked. "Because I don't mind showing you mine."

And then it struck her, and her cheeks flushed. "Does it count if there are other people who know because they were there?" 

Clarke considered, then smiled. "I'll allow it."

Lexa cleared her throat, looking anywhere but at Clarke. "When I was a freshman in college, I let one of the girls on my hall take pictures of me for a photography project." Before Clarke could scoff, she added, "Naked pictures. But you couldn't see my face, so no one but her knows it was me."

Clarke whistled softly, then flashed Lexa a wink. "Are you sure it was for a photography project?" she asked. "Are you sure she wasn't flirting with you?"

"She had a boyfriend," Lexa said. 

"That doesn't mean anything," Clarke pointed out. 

"I guess not," Lexa admitted. It _had_ meant something... until it hadn't. Until the relationship had fractured and fallen apart, and she'd come to Lexa for comfort, and, well... She forced the memories away. "Now you show me yours," she said. 

Clarke pretended to think for a minute, but Lexa knew it was an act because she'd already offered to tell her before. "My first kiss was with a girl," she said finally.

Lexa rolled her eyes. "You were twelve years old and 'just practicing'?" 

Clarke's eyes widened like Lexa had slapped her, and then she looked down, her jaw clenched.

"I'm sorry," Lexa said, reaching across the table to touch her hand. "Clarke. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. I ju—" But there was no excuse for saying something hurtful. 

Clarke looked down at where Lexa's fingers rested over hers, and after a few breaths she looked up again. There was the faintest hint of pink rimming her eyes. "I should go," she said. "Thanks for dinner." She stood up, her hand sliding out from under Lexa's, and pulled on her jacket.

Lexa pulled out her wallet and hastily pulled out several bills from her wallet. She had kept a vague mental tally of what the bill was likely to be, and their server was going to get a more than generous tip, but the last thing she needed was to have them think that she was trying to run out on paying the bill.

She burst out the door, scanning the sidewalks until she caught sight of a flash of blonde hair. She held back from running, barely, and when she was a few yards away she called, "Clarke, wait!" 

Clarke stopped, and turned slowly. "What?" she asked. 

"Just..." Lexa caught up with her, biting her lip as she scanned her face. She'd fucked up. She barely knew Clarke, so it shouldn’t matter. She shouldn't care. But it did. She did. She reached out cautiously, like she was approaching a cornered animal that she feared might lash out, and took Clarke's face between her hands, leaned in, and placed a soft kiss over the bandage on her forehead. "I know it doesn't make up for what I did, or said, but—"

Clarke shook her head slightly, and Lexa realized she was still holding on and let her hands fall away. "No," she said. "It doesn't." Still, there was the faintest hint of a smile. "But it's a start."

* * *

It was stupid, how much it had upset her to have Lexa just dismiss what she'd said. If she'd been told the same thing, would she have taken it any more seriously than Lexa had? Or would she have made the same assumption? 

She hadn't been twelve, she'd been fifteen, and she'd been infatuated with a brilliant girl in her science class, Raven. They'd been paired up for a semester-long project, and had spent more afternoons together than apart as a result, since Raven was determined that theirs would be the best in the class. One weekend, they'd just been hanging out, giving their brains a break, flopped together on the big squashy couch in the den at Clarke's house (they never went to Raven's, ever, and Clarke didn't ask why), and Clarke was having a hard time keeping her eyes off of her lab partner-turned-friend. (At least _she_ thought they were friends; she hoped that Raven felt the same.) The curve of her neck, the angle of her jaw, the sharp jut of her collarbone... the way she threw back her head when she laughed at her own (terrible) jokes...

She might have been able to restrain herself, might have been able to hold back, but then Raven just turned and looked at her, quiet for once, and then she smiled like Clarke had said something funny, and, well... Clarke's willpower shattered, and she leaned in and kissed her. 

And Raven kissed her back. She was absolutely certain that Raven kissed her back. It only lasted a second or two, but it was long enough for Clarke to realize that yeah, okay, she didn't just like Raven, she _liked_ Raven, and...

"Clarke," Raven said, as gently as she could, "you know I have a boyfriend, right?"

"Oh," she said. "Right. Sorry."

"It's fine," Raven said. "Just, y'know..." She shrugged. "For what it's worth, you're a pretty awesome kisser." She grinned, and Clarke forced a smile in return, and that was the end of that. She'd never told anyone about it, and she wondered if Raven even remembered it now. 

She pulled out her phone, but stopped herself before she sent an ill-advised text to Raven, who was still one of her closest friends (and who had thankfully dumped her dick boyfriend when he started screwing around on her when she went off to college). 

Finally she got up and grabbed a beer from the fridge and plunked down on the couch. She had homework she should be working on, but she didn't care. It had been a hell of a day, and aches were starting to settle in to her body from her collision with the car, and then the ground. Her forehead throbbed, and she imagined she could still feel the imprint of Lexa's lips against the wound, a slight tingle where they'd hit skin instead of bandage. 

It didn't make it all better, but she hadn't been lying when she said it was a start. Trouble was, it seemed unlikely that there would be an end. 

Except she ran into her – literally – at her favorite coffee place the next morning. She was earlier than usual, having given up on sleep somewhere around 5 am after tossing and turning for hours when a nightmare woke her somewhere around 2. She'd gotten some reading done, but finally decided she might as well leave the house and go through her morning routine at a more leisurely pace, rather than her usual last-minute scramble. 

"Oh!" she said as her shoulder bumped against someone else, glad of the lid on her cup because otherwise hot coffee would have sloshed over her fingers. "Sorry." She looked up and found herself staring into the same amazing, clear, light green eyes she'd found herself falling into at dinner the night before. 

"We need to stop meeting this way," Lexa said, but she was smiling, and she didn't look at all like she meant it. Well, maybe she would prefer that they stopped actually colliding, but not about the meeting. "How are you?"

"Sore," Clarke said, "but okay. Just a few bruises."

"I'm sorry," Lexa said. "I didn't—"

"It's okay," Clarke said. "I should have been paying more attention."

"Can I treat you to a muffin? Scone?" 

Clarke glanced at her watch, saw she still had plenty of time before she needed to be at the hospital. "Sure," she said. "I'd like that."

"You'll have to tell me what's good," Lexa said. "I don't usually come here."

So Clarke got in line with her, and they decided on a blueberry scone to share, and Lexa ordered tea. Clarke was pretty sure she didn't imagine the dirty look that the barista gave her, but if Lexa noticed, it didn't seem to bother her. Once they had Lexa's order, they found a table and sat down together, picking apart the pastry as they talked about nothing of any real consequence for a few minutes.

"I'm sorry about what I said last night," Lexa finally said. "About... mocking your secret." 

Clarke let out a breath, nodded. "Thank you," she said. "I shouldn't have let it upset me."

Lexa shook her head. "You're allowed to be upset when someone belittles your experience without even knowing what it is. Was. I'd like to hear the rest of it, if you'd like to tell me." She glanced around at the people at nearby tables, most of them barely half-awake and wrapped up in their own business. "Not here, though," she said. 

"Where?" Clarke asked. 

"Wherever you want," Lexa said. 

"When?"

"Tonight?"

Clarke frowned. "I can't do tonight. Tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow works," Lexa said. "Let me give you my number. We can figure out where and what time." 

Clarke pulled out her phone and typed in Lexa's number, then sent her a text so that she would have Clarke's number in return. They finished the scone, and Clarke was sure that she didn't imagine the sparks between them when their hands touched as they both reached for the plate at the same time. "I've got it," she said, and Lexa let go, and Clarke was equally sure that she didn't imagine her reluctance to do so.

* * *

Dinner the next night turned into a quick lunch date the day after, and then it was Friday, and dinner again, and Lexa was more than a little bit concerned about her budget, but the idea of declining an invitation to go out, of not seeing Clarke when she had the opportunity, was a lot more painful than the idea of trying to figure out how she could squeeze a few more dollars out of her limited entertainment budget. 

After dinner they just wandered the streets, looking in shop windows and occasionally noticing the more interesting characters around them, but mostly wrapped up in each other, in learning everything they could about each other: where they came from, what their childhoods had been like, what they'd done in college and what they hoped for the future. 

Hours passed, and the streets started to empty, and as they approached an apartment building near the hospital, Clarke's steps slowed. "This is me," she said. 

"Oh." Lexa made herself smile. "I guess I should say good night, then."

"I guess so," Clarke said, but neither of them said anything. 

Lexa wasn't sure who reached for whom, but a moment later their arms were around each other, and their lips fused together in a kiss that seared her nerves and set her heart racing. It wasn't a rough kiss, wasn't hard or desperate, and maybe that's why Lexa found herself melting into it, wanting - _needing_ \- more. 

"Come up," Clarke breathed against her mouth, and Lexa nodded. She hoped that there weren't security cameras in the elevators as Clarke pressed her back against the wall, her fingers deftly working open the buttons of Lexa's jacket and pushing up under the hem of her sweater underneath. By the time they got to Clarke's apartment, the only part of it Lexa cared about seeing was the bedroom. 

Clarke shut and locked the door behind them. "My roommate's never home anyway," she said, "but just in case..." They pressed into the kiss again, breaking apart only when it was necessary to divest themselves of one article of clothing or another, until there was nothing more to shed, and they crawled between the rumpled covers of Clarke's bed, their limbs twining as they began to learn each other's bodies. 

Lexa brushed her lips over the scrape on Clarke's forehead, which she was glad to see was healing well, and then searched for any other bump or bruise that might have been the result of the accident, kissing them all better before she let herself be distracted by the sounds that Clarke made when she kissed and touched other, more delicate, more intimate places. 

It was everything and nothing like Lexa had imagined. Even after hours of conversation about all kinds of details about their lives, it still felt like there was so much she didn't know about Clarke, that Clarke didn't know about her. She thought maybe there would always be something new to learn, some new detail to discover... and right now that was focused on where and how she liked to be touched, when to slow down and when to speed up, when to go harder, to give more, and when to back off... and what her face looked like and the sounds she made as she peaked, and how she reached for Lexa, fingers sliding between her legs even as she shuddered through the final aftershocks of her climax. 

Lexa knew she wasn't the first woman that Clarke had been with, and she couldn't help but be grateful to whoever had come before her – no pun intended – and what Clarke had learned from that experience, because now she played Lexa's body like an instrument, like she'd been doing it for years, and Lexa had to bury her face against Clarke's neck because she didn't know how thick the walls were, and even if Clarke's roommate wasn't home, her neighbors might be, and she didn't need complete strangers knowing what she sounded like when she came. 

Minutes or hours later they laid tangled and spent, Clarke tracing the lines of the tattoo that ran along Lexa's spine. She hadn't asked about it yet, but Lexa was sure that she would at some point. When Clarke drew in a breath to speak, she assumed that was what was coming, but instead...

"I need to tell you something," Clarke said. 

Lexa turned her head to look at her. "What?"

"You didn't hit me." 

Lexa blinked. "What?"

"With your car that day. You didn't hit me. I tripped, and I smacked against your car on the way down. You were a foot away from me, at least." 

For a second anger flared. How could Clarke let her go on thinking that she'd been the one to inflict her injuries? How could she let her carry that guilt? But then she looked at Clarke, and it dissipated, fizzling out completely, because what was the point? It had led them here, to this point, and she wouldn't trade that for anything. 

"You couldn't have mentioned that sooner?" she teased. 

"And risk you not feeling like you needed to make it up to me by asking me out?" Clarke said. "Nope."

Lexa shook her head. "I think maybe you're the one who needs to make it up to me," she said. 

Clarke grinned. "Oh, don't worry," she said. "I plan to."


End file.
